sounds like you are lagging. get a better connection.

Yeah, I use/get used by Twisted Snarble Barbs all the time & have never seen anything like this. Are you playing from outside the US? How many bars do you get on your connection strength icon?

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Minimap

Are you playing T2 or T3? If you are a T3 Vog Set user it should not be a shocker to get gutted by a pure piercing blade. The piercing swords are the only pure non-normal damage swords, so it is a no brainer that they will dominate anybody without piercing armor.

If what you describe is accurate, you should be able to trigger switches in the training hall before you see the animation. Can you create a video of what you are seeing?

"If what you describe is accurate, you should be able to trigger switches in the training hall before you see the animation. Can you create a video of what you are seeing?"

This.

Further, what are you doing standing next to someone who has a BTB or FF out and is able to attack you? One couldn't dodge it otherwise whether the damage occurs a few frames before the swing or not. Is your reaction time so great that when the person is mid swing, you could get out of the way?

The only thing I can think of is, you're seeing the swing half a second after the damage, but this is ridiculous. My observations is that the first swing is so quick that the damage appears a few frames before the swing, but as the game is 30fps, this doesn't matter.

IGN: Sypsy

well it is proven that the DA's/GF's are bugged in Lockdown, they aren't bugged outside of LD only in it. So it is not out of the realm of possibility that Piercing Blades are bugged in LD as well.

getting rid of auto-aim in LD would certainly stem the tide of flourish/bard dominance as the second two hits would be much more difficult to connect with.

@moogzor

I believe you may be mistaken about the Flourish/Snarb reach vs the GF/DA. The arch of the Flourish/Snarb swing is about as wide as the GF/DA swing, but I believe the DA/GF has a slight reach advantage (talking first swing without stepping). I have done extensive first swing reach testing in the ATH using Calibur vs Troika vs Sealed. The Troika has around 1/2 a block of reach advantage over the Calibur. The sealed sword has the same reach as the Troika, which I find annoying because the Troika's model is waaay longer & should have even more reach then it does. I'll test Snarb vs Sealed next time I sign on, but I bet the Sealed has a slight reach advantage. I'll post again or edit later.

From the look of it you're cancelling the animation there by tapping block. So if you had allowed the animation to play out it would have correctly coincided with the switch being hit, as it did on your first attempt. Also, the rapiers are fast weapons, and with ASI: Maximum on top of that it could just be that Spiral Knights isn't making the animation fast enough, which is why you can cancel the animation with block and still have it inflict a hit. Try removing your attack speed increases and see if you can still do that.

Also, the damage leaders are rarely people with rapiers, the damage leaders are generally people with Gran Fausts that run up and hit multiple people in a swing because they're standing too close together.

Excellent video, WindOwl.

The issue wouldn't exist if getting hit by an attack didn't interrupt your own attack animation - this effectively means that piercing swords cannot be interrupted like every other sword, which is a significant advantage. Shield canceling barely factors into it at all, in most cases.

@hellrazer33

If it does have a slight reach advantage, it's not by much. In any case the flourish/snarble sword lines first swing is a lot more powerful than any of the other 3 hit swords

It's not shield-cancelling that makes it a problem - it's an issue of animation priority.

A calibur with ASI maximum and a flourish with ASI maximum attack each other simultaneously. If they're really launching at the same time, the damage from the Flourish's attack (which happens, as demonstrated, *before* the animation) will interrupt the Calibur every time.

The disadvantage of having any other sword in PvP is that you leave yourself open during the start and end of the swing animation.

Piercing swords don't have that window of opportunity, because the damage occurs immediately, rather than when the animation completes successfully.

The reason why a Calibur and a Flourish attacking simultaneously will cause the Calibur to get interrupted has nothing to do with the damage going before the animation. It's because the piercing swords are strictly faster than the Calibur line. This is common knowledge. Even the speed bar is longer, which, despite the fact that the bars are a poor way to judge a weapon, indicates that the pierce swords are supposed to be faster.

As for WindOwl's video, to echo previous posters, shield cancelling. However, it did seem as though the attack was still being performed, even though you had canceled the animation and were moving. I would count that as a glitch. I wouldn't say that makes the weapon ridiculously overpowered, but I would say that's something they should fix. Also, props for actually making the video and backing up the argument.

So yeah, was impatient and did it already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwZwJ0rarPE

It's easier to disprove that people's complaints about animation not syncing with the actual strike using Final Flourish. This is because of not only the tip-trail it leaves showing the path of the sword's dash, but also the additional animation of the large aura-slash.

There were 5 combo-slashes in my video altogether. The only thing that designates a shield cancel is that the shield bubble doesn't appear. The 2nd-4th swings are proper shield cancels, so not sure what you are disagreeing against. You can even see the CIV's slash-aura in the Wiki's Shield-cancel section:
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Shieldbearer_Guide#Shield_Canceling

I see what you mean now, as I've been trying to do that more to cancel the second swing. Even with the Final Flourish, the trail doesn't exist when there is no swing-aura.

Actually though, it doesn't really prove the OP's point at all, like you already mentioned. I Final Flourish myself, and have never needed to use this type of canceling to get an upper hand in PVP or deal 15k+ damage per match, as it's technically slower than comboing out anyway, so I have major doubts that this is occurring in Lockdown.

jeburk, you're really just complaining about how fast the Flourish line combos out and how you can't react to the chain, not this "inflict their damage prior to their attack" glitch that isn't true, aside from lag.

Sometimes I see this when I am lagging heavily, when my connection is good it doesn't happen.

I also performed this test in the training hall myself. Though I was hitting the trigger on the first swing, not the second. With ASI Max, the weapon moves very quickly, but the trail is easy to see. When the tip goes by the trigger, the trigger spins, not before. The trigger most definitely does not spin the moment I hit my mouse button.

With an acheron, the results are the same, it's a very fast swing. The only thing quirky I noticed is that the reach on the flourish is longer than the acheron's for the first swing. But maybe the that's just the difference in the arcs of the swords (broad and short vs long and narrow)?

I am suspicious that perhaps Jebunk's annoyance comes from differences between his and others ASI, different weapon choices or lag (or a combination of them.)

-- Sypsy